Understanding the Importance of Shop Tools

“Man, you know, that’s make it or break it,” says Renschler, CPFP, who is fleet division manager for the city of Fairfield, California, when asked about how vital tools are to his fleet operation. “Your tools are just as important as your personnel.”

Seghi, fleet services manager for Hillsborough County Fleet Management in Tampa, Florida, agrees with Renschler about tools and how crucial they are to fleet maintenance.

“Having good tools that are of higher quality as well as innovative approaches not only improves technicians’ work, but in addition, it also helps keep labor times efficient from job to job,” Seghi says. “You must have the right tool for the right job.”

Renschler and Seghi are a part of fleet operations that are different from each other in various ways. But on the topic of tools, they agree on how crucial tools are to a fleet’s operation. And they agree that fleets are continuing to move toward electrical tools, battery-operated tools, and diagnostics.

Fairfield: Defining Shop Tools

Renschler’s division oversees about 360 non-public safety vehicles and equipment, as well as about 240 police department vehicles, 70 fire department vehicles, and 60 transit coaches. The department also oversees about 30 pieces of construction equipment, around 60 trailers, and about 35 pieces of towable equipment.

Tools are a crucial part of maintaining those assets, and Renschler expanded on his earlier comment about tools being as important as personnel. A fleet simply can’t do repairs without adequate personnel, he says.

“The same with tools. If you don’t have the right tools, it’s either going to delay the repair or you’re not going to be able to do a repair and cause you to outsource it,” he said.

Renschler said “a lot of things are considered tools in fleet,” including hand tools as well as electronic and diagnostic equipment. Fairfield technicians must have their own hand tools and small tools, but if they need something simple like a 1-inch impact gun, or tools to perform an overhead valve adjustment on a series 60 Detroit Diesel engine, for example, the city provides those.

Each of the technicians uses a Microsoft Pro tablet that is connected to secure Wi-Fi at the shop.

Continuing with the theme of the electronic tool trend, all of the city’s repair manuals are now electronic on the department’s server.

“And that’s an important part, because now when they need to look up a wiring diagram and they’re under the hood of a dump truck, they can put the tablet on the cowl … and be able to look at the color diagram right on the tablet while they’re chasing wires,” Renschler explains.

In the area of regular hand tools, Renschler says the one-inch impact gun must work properly, especially if a mechanic is roadside and trying to change a tire.

The torque wrench is another tool that stands out in importance for the Fairfield fleet, Renschler says.

“You need to torque stuff,” he explains, adding that a torque wrench is also an important tool for public safety.

“Public safety is not just police and fire. It’s mechanics,” Renschler says. If a 52-passenger bus loses a tire, people could get hurt.

“And that’s public safety,” he says. “If you aren’t torquing wheels, you’re going to lose a wheel. So a torque wrench is extremely important. Also … we do valves and heads on big diesel engines, the Detroits and the Cummins. You don’t torque that head down right, you’re going to blow a head gasket, and it’s not cheap on those motors.”

On that topic of expenses, Fairfield operates with a small shop tool purchase budget of $11,000, along with $24,500 for replacement shop tools, and $32,000 per year for shop equipment repairs.

Hillsborough County: Tools a Recruiting Bonus

Seghi operates the fleet with an annual tool budget of $86,901. His department handles about 3,400 assets including cars, light-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, heavy equipment, and emergency fire apparatus vehicles.

The county provides all tools to its technicians, which Seghi describes as a recruiting bonus. The department purchases tools through Amazon as well as Napa. The county also has a contract with Napa for auto parts.

Diagnostic tools are an important part of the operation. Hillsborough County uses the Autel platform for its diverse fleet of heavy equipment including John Deere, Caterpillar, International, Freightliner, and Peterbilt, along with E-One and Pierce fire trucks. With the platform, diagnostic tablets are in use at each of the county’s five shops. All five shops have at least one tablet, and the department’s fire shop uses four of them.

Seghi says those tablets have just about the full function of OEM capabilities.

The shops all use Ford IDS and the Ford FDRS factory scan tools for its 2019 and later model year Ford equipment.

Trends: Electronics, Manual Hand Tools, and Training

All those electronic tools are part of what Renschler says are a top trend in the area of tools.

“It’s going away from your standard hand tools being the most important thing that you’re going to use,” Renschler explains. “Now it’s electrical. It’s all diagnostics. It’s both computer diagnostics and electrical diagnostics.”

“I can see more tools becoming battery-powered,” Seghi says.

“Also, with the increased amount of and complexity of modules in equipment, scan tools are going to become even more necessary for daily operations.”

But hand tools are still important. Seghi says Hillsborough County mostly uses the Gearwrench brand for ratchets and wrenches and the Sunex brand for sockets.

“Gearwrench makes all pretty much all hand tools, but we focus on the ratchets and the ratcheting wrenches,” he says. “They’re kind of leading the way on the multi-tooth ratchet segment where you’ll have 120 teeth, basically meaning you don’t have to go too far on the ratchet to get to that next click.”

Training is necessary to use those tools, especially on equipment such as diagnostic laptops, and Seghi said the county is working to get Ford to perform onsite IDS and FDRS training.

“You have to train the technician on how to use the tool,” Seghi says. The county created a senior training specialist position and recently hired Rodney Gorzka Jr., who handles technical and occupational training.

Some tools don’t require an extensive amount of training, Seghi says.

“But diagnostic tools, that takes a little bit of time on training,” he explains. “How to diagnose electrical, how to properly use a voltmeter, that’s not something you can teach somebody inside of an hour.”

Renschler has gone through his share of training on tools, learning about the importance of tools early in his career starting out as a mechanic. While working on a vehicle early on, he attempted to remove a bolt from an exhaust manifold, but the wrench he was using was not finishing the job. The tech in the stall next to him handed him a different brand of wrench, and Renschler was able to remove the bolt.

“Tools are not made the same. They really aren’t,” Renschler says. “So I became a firm believer after that. I was to make sure I had good-quality tools. And we do the same here. It’s extremely important.”